World food prices fell 20.5% year-on-year

World food prices, although they remain “very high”, fell for the twelfth consecutive month, 20.5% less in March 2023 compared to the same month in 2022 when the markets showed the first effects of the war in Ukraine, announced the FAO on March 10, 2020. Friday.

“Abundant supply, weak import demand and the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (the maritime grain corridor that allows exports from Ukraine, editor’s note) contributed to this decline,” says the Organization of Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

For a month, the FAO Food Price Index, which tracks the change in international prices for a basket of basic products, fell 2.1% from its February level. It fell 20.5% “from its March 2022 record level.” The fall in the prices of cereals (-5.6% in one month) and vegetable oils (-3%) offset the increase in sugar (+1.5%), which is at “its highest level since October 2016, reflecting concerns about falling production prospects in India, Thailand and China.

Prices “still very high”

The price of wheat, a bread cereal, fell 7%, “under the effect of the strong production in Australia, the improvement in the state of the crops in the European Union, the importance of the availabilities in Russia and the continuous exports of Ukraine from its Black Sea ports”. World maize prices fell 4.6%, partly on “expectations of a record crop in Brazil”, and rice prices 3.2% due to “ongoing or imminent harvests in major exporting countries, including India , Vietnam and Thailand”.

Vegetable oil prices fell 47.7% yoy as “abundant global supplies and weak global import demand reduced soybean, rapeseed and sunflower quotations.” This “more than offset higher palm oil prices”, which rose due to lower production levels in Southeast Asia due to flooding and temporary export restrictions imposed by ‘Indonesia’.

“Although prices have fallen globally, they remain very high and continue to rise in domestic markets, which poses additional problems in terms of food security,” said Máximo Torero, FAO chief economist.